1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information distribution apparatus, an information distribution method, and a storage medium, and more particularly, to an information distribution apparatus and the like for distributing distribution information such as advertisement information.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, advertisement information is distributed in such a manner that an advertisement distribution server ranks advertisements and determines a distribution frequency and a distribution position based on the rank. Ranking of advertisement information is performed based on, for example, a click-through rate (CTR: also referred to as a click rate) (for example, see Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2007-524915).
The CTR of the same advertisement information may change depending on the display position in the page layout displayed on a display screen or the like of a terminal. For example, the attention degree (the easiness to be clicked on) of advertisement information that is ranked on the second rank as a posting position may be different depending on whether the posting position within a page layout of the second advertisement frame is located near the center of the display screen or near the bottom.
Moreover, in a case where advertisement information is posted in a series of Web content that is not fit into one display screen but covers a plurality of screens (views), when a posting position of the advertisement information on the second rank is near the bottom of a first view of the Web content and the posting position of the advertisement information on the third rank is near the top of a second view of the Web content, the attention degree of the third advertisement information may be higher than the attention degree of the second advertisement information.
In this context, “view” means a portion of the entire Web content displayed within the display screen of the terminal. For example, when the Web content contains a large amount of content so that it is necessary to sequentially scroll the Web content to display all content, the portion (although it is not always the top portion, it is generally the content corresponding to one page of the display screen from the top of the Web content) that is displayed on the display screen at the first time is referred to as the first view. Moreover, a portion of the content which is continued from the bottom of the first view and is displayed on the display screen by scrolling down the first view is referred to as the second view.
As above, when a user tries to post advertisement information having a high rank at a posting position having a high attention degree, a reversal phenomenon such that the attention degree of the posting position of advertisement information having a low rank increases may occur depending on the layout of advertisement information within Web content. Thus, the present applicant tried to solve a problem in that advertisement information having a high rank that should originally be posted at a posting position having a high attention degree is posted at a posting position having a low attention degree to cause a disadvantage for the advertisement information having a high rank. The present applicant proposes a new method for distributing advertisement information appropriately according to the attention degree of each posting position within a page layout.